These two objects are, it is plain, entirely distinct. Under the latter is included all the explanation, and assistance, and additional information which the teacher may give his pupils, and under the former, such an examination of individuals as is necessary to secure their careful attention to their lessons. It is unsafe to neglect either of these points. If the class meetings are mere recitations, they soon become dull and mechanical; the pupils generally take little interest in their studies, and imbibe no literary spirit. Their intellectual progress will, accordingly, suddenly cease the moment they leave school, and so cease to be called upon to recite lessons. On the other hand, if instruction is all that is aimed at, and recitation (by which I mean, as above explained, such an examination of individuals as is necessary to ascertain that they have faithfully performed the tasks assigned) is neglected, the exercise soon becomes not much more than a lecture, to which those, and those only, will attend who please.
The business, therefore, of a thorough examination of the class must not be omitted. I do not mean that each individual scholar must every day be examined, but simply that the teacher must, in some way or other, satisfy himself by reasonable evidence that the whole class are really prepared. A great deal of ingenuity may be exercised in contriving means for effecting this object in the shortest possible time. I know of no part of the field of a teacher's labors which may be more facilitated by a little ingenuity than this.
One teacher, for instance, has a spelling lesson to hear. He begins at the head of the line, and putting one word to each boy, goes regularly down, each successive pupil calculating the chances whether a word which he can accidentally spell will or will not come to him. If he spells it, the teacher can not tell whether he is prepared or not. That word is only one among fifty constituting the lesson. If he misses it, the teacher can not decide that he was unprepared. It might have been a single accidental error.
Another teacher, hearing the same lesson, requests the boys to bring their slates, and, as he dictates the words one after another, requires all to write them. After they are all written, he calls upon the pupils to spell them aloud as they have written them, simultaneously, pausing a moment after each, to give those who are wrong an opportunity to indicate it by some mark opposite the word misspelled. They all count the number of errors and report them. He passes down the class, glancing his eye at the work of each one to see that all is right, noticing particularly those slates which, from the character of the boys, need a more careful inspection. A teacher who had never tried this experiment would be surprised at the rapidity with which such work will be performed by a class after a little practice.
Now how different are these two methods in their actual results! In the latter case the whole class are thoroughly examined. In the former not a single member of it is. Let me not be understood to recommend exactly this method of teaching spelling as the best one to be adopted in all cases. I only bring it forward as an illustration of the idea that a little machinery, a little ingenuity in contriving ways of acting on the whole rather than on individuals, will very much promote the teacher's designs.
In order to facilitate such plans, it is highly desirable that the classes should be trained to military precision and exactness in these manipulations. What I mean by this may perhaps be best illustrated by describing a case: it will show, in another branch, how much will be gained by acting upon numbers at once instead of upon each individual in succession.
Imagine, then, that a teacher requested all the pupils of his school who could write to take out their slates at the hour for a general exercise. As soon as the first bustle of opening and shutting the desks was over, he looked around the room, and saw some ruling lines across their slates, others wiping them all over on both sides with sponges, others scribbling, or writing, or making figures.
"All those," says he, speaking, however, with a pleasant tone and with a pleasant look, "who have taken out any thing besides slates, may rise."
Several, in various parts of the room, stood up.
"All those who have written any thing since they took out their slates may rise too, and those who have wiped their slates."